The First Time
by onekisstotakewithmex
Summary: In every relationship, there are many firsts. From the first meeting, Delilah and Tim know that there is something about one another, and they're each taking the risk that maybe they're soulmates. Of course, they are rewarded. This is a gift for minikate–24-05 my twin peanut xx McLilah/McDee, s14/15 spoilers


The first time she sees him, she doesn't know what's going to happen next, or who he is, or why, but there's something about the blue green eyes and shy smile that captivates her attention. He spills his coffee in front of her (or is it because of her?), and they flirt, and he is awkward in a way that she finds endearing. She sees a badge at his waist and meets his eyes as she pulls out her own ID. There is laughter and a shared smile, and numbers exchanged. And as he walks away she is sure that something flickers in her that wasn't there before. She wonders if he felt it too, and somewhere, the universe smiles.

The first time she goes on a date with Timothy McGee, she laughs until her sides hurt, as he tells her about all the crazy things his team gets up to, and the stunts they pull to get their guy. She learns fast that they almost always get their guy. But she doesn't see his eyes light up until she mentions some science show she'd watched on the Discovery channel, and suddenly it's like looking at a whole different man. Seeing him passionate about something makes her smile, and want to match his passion. After all, when it comes to science, she can hold her own. Work is forgotten, the conversation takes off, and she wonders who exactly is looking out for the two of them, as they laugh and trade science stories over grape soda and a pizza. She realizes that this is the best night she's had in a long time. Later, walking down the street, she takes his hand, and in the cab on the way to the movies, _She Blinded Me With Science_ comes on the radio _,_ and there's a shared smile at the coincidence. And at the end of the night, the promise of another date. She wants to kiss him, but in the end, they are both shy and awkward, and he kisses her on the cheek, and she watches him walk away, knowing that he'll be back.

The first time they kiss is an event all its own, the kind of first kiss story one would tell their grandkids. It's been six dates since they traded chemistry puns in a DC cab, and they're at Comic Con, and they're dressed as Han and Leia, because another thing they have in common is their unabashed love of all things Harrison Ford, to the point where Tim jokes about naming his firstborn son Han. They've gotten stuck in a malfunctioning elevator, and the pins are digging into her head from her space buns, but Tim is telling stupid Star Wars jokes to pass the time, and as she looks at him, she can't fathom how they got here. Instead of voicing that thought, she jokes about how maybe elevators are their spot, and instead of waiting for him to kiss her, she grabs the edge of his vest (and is grateful to the Star Wars costume department) and plants one on him. And it isn't perfect, it's awkward and cheesy, but when she finally pulls away, he's giving her a look like she is his galaxy, but all he says – an I love you hovering in between them – is that now he has to name his son Han. The unspoken part being a joke that _they_ should name _their_ firstborn son Han. And they share another kiss, filled with promise.

The first time she meets his team, his family, is after he loses his job. It should be awkward and terrible, but Tim has an arm around her, and she's grinning at this team of his, because she has seen the look on his face, it has told her everything. She meets Gibbs, who gives her a sad smile, like she reminds him of someone, and claps Tim's NCIS hat on her head. She knows that with him, she'll fit right in. She meets Tony, whose mind is elsewhere, but whose grin is genuine. He calls Tim _McSmitten_ and teases her, all charm and movie references that he's impressed she gets, and he winks at her, but she feels it: he is broken too. She does not meet the third and only female member of Tim's team, who is far away. Delilah can only hope to someday meet her, but for now, she has Tim, and she sees that he is in good hands. She doesn't dare complain that Abby doesn't like her, just hopes she'll come around eventually. They all have Tim's best interests at heart. And so, she thinks, does she.

The first time they exchange _I love yous,_ she isn't even planning on it. It's the beginning of a disgustingly hot September, and Tim has talked her into taking a mental health day. Still not reinstated, it isn't as if he's busy, and he talks her into it, the bad boy talking the good girl into skipping class. Instead of working, they spend the day lounging around his apartment, taking turns in front of a fan. He reads to her from his book, using stupid accents to make her laugh, and she paints his nails aquamarine, and they sit in front of the TV, watching movie after movie. They start with Star Wars, and she and Tim both laugh when they realize they can quote some scenes perfectly, but as the sun sinks below the horizon, she opens a window to smell the fresh air, the scent of fall carried in on a cool breeze, and they've switched to lying on the floor together with a pizza box, staring up at Indiana Jones, and they're sleep-deprived and giggly like kids at a sleepover, and she looks over at him, only to find him already staring back at her. And then he blurts it out: "I love you". He immediately turns red, and she scoots closer, and tells it to him right back. "I love you" is what she says back. They share a kiss and then she steals the last slice of pizza off his plate, and they settle in for a night that smells of fresh beginnings and sounds like Harrison Ford's laugh, and she knows, she just _knows_ that this is where she's supposed to be.

Even with that, it's another three months before she spends the night. It's something they've discussed before, and come close to before, but… their relationship is already built on solid ground by then. They decide to be cheesy and romantic, and set a date, with a nice dinner, and candles, and with the fireplace channel playing, and the snow falling outside, it's quite possibly the coziest she has ever felt. They get tipsy on a bottle of Christmas champagne from Tony, and dance to old records, and maybe it's cheesy, but every time she looks at him, it feels like fireworks are going off in her chest. And just like everything with them, it isn't perfect, but it's with Tim. And lying next to him afterwards, he cracks a stupid joke to break the tension, and nothing has changed, because they are adults, laughing in bed, and she tries not to think about how this is a beginning, and a step towards something permanent and irreversible. The next morning, on Christmas Eve, he makes her breakfast as she wears one of his MIT shirts, and as she tucks a stray hair behind her ears, she catches him giving her a look of raw emotion. The fireworks feeling is back with a vengeance, and their breakfast gets quite cold in the meantime.

The first time she feels her heart breaking is not Tim's fault. They've fought, of course, and bickered, like all couples in a relationship, and it hasn't even been a year, and maybe there won't be any more years. Because her heart breaks when she wakes up in a hospital room, with her parents on one side and Tim on the other, and she wakes up paralyzed. With every passing day, their relationship is more and more strained, and suddenly the drone attack on the gala feels personal, because it could take away the man she's in love with. And she sees in his eyes when she awakens, the relief and the guilt and the fear, and she wonders how long it'll take before it stops eating at him. Even as the bad news keeps coming, as she adjusts to a life very different, he stays. Even as the news comes in that the chances of her having children has slimmed to barely possible, he stays. And maybe he isn't there when she wakes up, but he visits as often as he can. And when he does, they hold each other, and try to make amends, to breathe each other in and never let go, and in this fragile new world, she finds a flicker of hope, because he stays.

The first time she has her realization, is the exact minute he tells her that she should take the job in Dubai. She can see the fear in his eyes, and knows thanks to Tony, that he was planning on asking her to move in, and just _knows_ that he is letting her go, because he loves her, and he wants her to be happy… even if he's scared she won't want to be with him. They've been together for a little over a year now, and she is asking for the moon, but he is handing it over, and along with it, his happiness. She searches his face, and sees that he wants her to go to Dubai, because he wants her to be happy and successful, and he loves her. It breaks her heart, and ironically, in the breathless moment of him telling her she should go to Dubai, she suddenly understands that she cannot let him go, that she can see herself spending the rest of her life with this man, who is a writer and a hero and her Timothy- though she isn't quite sure when she started calling him hers. She is going to Dubai, but she is not going without him. The universe clearly wants them together, and maybe it'll be hard, but she has never been more certain: Tim is _hers_ , and distance doesn't change that.

The first time she sees him when she comes back to the States, isn't quite the homecoming she imagined. There are more guns and more people and more anger than she'd hoped for. She's carried around the guilt, and the worry that maybe things won't work out between them, but she knows every time she sees his tired face on a Skype call, that she has made the right call, she has gotten her cake and eaten it too, because she refuses to give him up. And _nothing_ compares to the moment when she first sees him again, not through a screen, but living and breathing and perfect in front of her. Even if he's angry, even if they're fighting and he's annoying her with multiple texts, she just… she knows he wanted her to go for her career, and maybe it's his fault, maybe it's hers, but their lives are so intertwined at this point, that even just seeing him leaves her breathless, and they will work it out.

The first time and the last time he proposes to her, is memorable. He's been acting strange for weeks, for months even, and she knows that something is up. They've been living together for almost a year, and she can read him like her favorite book. She's wanted him to ask her for so long that she's even considered buying a ring and just proposing herself, but she never goes through with it. They've been together for three and a half years, and she would be content to stay with him forever, married or not. Marrying him would be an added bonus now. So when he stops the elevator, she wonders if this is it. And then he rambles in typical Tim fashion, and gets down on one knee with an absolutely gorgeous ring and he proposes right there in the elevator, and what else can she say but yes? She says yes to waking up with him for the rest of her life, and says yes to a white picket fence future, and his face is a constellation of hope and love and trust that they _can_ do this. She chooses him, the way she always, without knowing it, has chosen him. The way he chooses her. She can't ask for more.

The first night of their marriage comes two months earlier than expected, and Tim has given them a wedding gift they weren't exactly expecting, but she has a ring on her finger and Tim, her Timothy is by her side, and it's not the wedding she planned, but it is the wedding she's secretly dreamed of. Intimate, with people they love, and her future has been returned to her in ways she never could have envisioned after the Conrad Gala. They are married, and nothing can change that now, and they are having a baby, the white picket fence future she always dreamed of, and did she know this day was coming from the beginning? And had she known it, would she have behaved differently? She has known for a long time, as she watches her new husband sleep, that this has always been written in the stars for them.

The first night without him, the first night knowing that he could be dead for all she knows, is the hardest. She tosses and turns and analyzes the situation over and over again, because this is the kind of thing she has been trained for. Only at the same time, as she presses hands to her midsection, she knows that this is something she was never trained for. She has barely had time to adjust to being the wife of Timothy McGee, and she cannot handle the thought of being his widow. Two months pass, and she does not sleep soundly or feel remotely at peace until he returns to her, bruised and bloody and unshaven, but wonderfully and perfectly whole. Physically whole, anyway. Her first night with him returned to her, they are both sleepless, and talk themselves hoarse until near dawn, when they fall asleep, his arms around her, and he is never letting go again, or at least that's what she tells herself. She knows he won't possibly put himself in harm's way again, because he is her world and she is his world, and as she touches his face, feeling him warm and alive beneath her fingers is enough to bring her a small sense of peace. Her husband is alive, her baby is healthy, and they are together. It's enough.

The first time they feel their child move is both exhilarating and terrifying all at once. She barely feels it at first, the beat of a butterfly's wings, or the feeling like she's drunk too much champagne. It's the breathless feeling of fireworks all over again, but this isn't just her emotions running wild, this is what she and Tim have created, and though she's sitting on the couch and reading, as soon as she understands that this is their child moving within her, she yells for him. He runs in, terrified, but then as she presses his hands to her belly, his expression of fear melts away to one of stunned awe, and their eyes meet. He is crying, and she is crying, and she is so grateful to have him returned to her from the dead. He gives her that same look he always has, like she is his galaxy. And yet, as they feel the child move, it is like a whole new galaxy has unfolded before them.

The first time they meet their children, they are both exhausted and exhilarated and overwhelmed, because they have not one child, but two. In the course of an hour, they have become parents, and she watches him hold his baby girl for the first time, as she clutches their son in her arms, not wanting to ever let go. That look he once reserved for her has now been turned on their daughter, and she marvels that this is their galaxy. They are caught in each other's gravity, and what more could she ask for? Because this is her husband and her children, and she thinks back to a cramped elevator and Tim joking about naming their firstborn son Han, and now she is holding that very same firstborn son. Tim tells her he loves her, and he looks at his daughter like an archaeologist, with the most precious find of his career in his arms.

In hindsight, she thinks of that first flicker of something she felt when they met. She understands that _they_ were written in the stars. And she knows, sure as anything, that she will wake up every day, with him beside her, and think to herself " _it's you_ " every day. He is hers, and she is his, and they have two wonderful children. From the first moment, he's always been the Han to her Leia. Her Timothy. His Delilah. From that very first moment they shared.


End file.
